


Baking With Goggles (Safety First!)

by eminorseven



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Baking, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Gen, Humor, at least explicitly, completely inane situations but Mechs flavored, so theres, they do not actually wear goggles, you can imagine it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26253772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eminorseven/pseuds/eminorseven
Summary: Marius tries to justify bringing Jonny and Tim to the kitchen. Brian daydreams. Jonny stabs many walnuts. Tim gets locked out and explodes things.Typical baking stuff.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 60





	Baking With Goggles (Safety First!)

**Author's Note:**

> Marius tries to justify bringing Jonny and Tim to the kitchen. Brian daydreams. Jonny stabs many walnuts. Tim gets locked out and explodes things.
> 
> Typical baking stuff.
> 
> (TW: Mechanisms-typical violence, and being completely fine with it, with a bit of implied cannibalism on Jonny's part)

Marius von Raum was having a good morning! 

He slides the kitchen door open, and strolls in happily, with something obscured in tow. Brian greets him with a wave and a polite smile. He always looked very put upon, it was nice to see that he was having a good morning too! 

Too bad, Marius was about to ruin it.

He decides to start with an innocent enough question. “So we’re going to be baking today?”

“Yeah. I thought we could get that out of the way, so whatever we make can cool, and then we can make dinner with the whole crew now that Ivy and Nastya are back on board. I don’t know if it’ll be easy prying them away from Raphaella, but maybe we can get all three of them to come.”

“Wonderful! _So_...”

Brian looks concerned for a moment and Marius feels a pang of guilt that he waves away. They have plenty of time to bake and cook together, it’s _fine._ He's allowed to possibly ruin it one time.

“ _‘So’?_ What’s the ‘so’ for?”

“I may have brought. Some guests.” Brian looks horrified. “Did you kidnap someone again?” He asks, worried.

“What do you mean _again,_ I’ve never kidnapped anyone before! Well. Okay. That’s a lie.” Marius gestures behind him. Tim and Jonny were tied and gagged together, with a half ripped get along T-shirt draped over them. “I just thought it would be a wonderful bonding experience for all of us with goggles! _And also so that Tim and Jonny would stop stealing my monoggle for one afternoon_ , because despite everything they tell me it is absolutely the pinnacle of fashion.” He mutters half of what he says, but Brian seems to pick up all of it anyways. 

Marius drags both the aforementioned duo inside, with _drag_ being the operative word, for they were wriggling violently. Brian stares at the messy display, and points at Jonny, who’s resorted to try chew his way through the gag.

“Jonny, I understand, he can make very good food if you closely monitor that he hasn’t put any human bits inside, I’ve made that mistake before, but Tim? In the kitchen? Don’t you remember the Cosmic Valentine’s Day incident?” Brian points at a set of pictures that littered the front of the fridge, titled, BANNED FROM THE KITCHEN. It had all eight of the other Mechanisms in some iteration or another, with a candid photo of the whole group mid-brawl, taken in a selfie position by the Toy Soldier stuck to the front with a massive rock Raphaella had claimed to have magnetic qualities.

Marius heaved the now exhausted pair onto a chair with his metal arm. “We don’t acknowledge the Cosmic Valentine’s Day incident, Brian.” 

“Okay, but-”

“We do not. Acknowledge. The Cosmic Valentine’s Day incident.” He props them onto one of the eight chairs surrounding the table (the ninth met its demise some time ago, and it happened to be Tim’s one, so there was a sad looking stool as its replacement). 

Brian sighs. For someone that claimed to champion the benefits of talking about one’s problems (and a very pushy one at that), Marius really did avoid that particular day with a passion. But he had good reason to! “Fine then. They can stay. But you’re cleaning up if this turns into a bloodbath. We’re trying to have a nice dinner with all nine of us since it’s been a while since we were all on board together. Marius, could you untie them?”

“With a lot of reluctance? Yes.” Jonny had solidly made it through half of the gag and wiggles aggressively, spitting it out. “The fuck was that for? I already agreed to come, you just decided to bring _this one_ along, you basically provoked me.” Tim’s eyebrows furrow angrily, and started chewing his way through the gag as well. Jonny sticks his tongue out at him. 

Marius looked back at Brian. “I’m starting to regret this decision.” Brian shrugs, tugging an apron over his head. He didn’t necessarily need one, but claimed that he liked the aesthetic. “It’s not too late to take them back.” 

Tim was not making any progress at all on the gag, and Jonny was now laughing at his miserable failure. Marius considers this.

“ _But,_ it would be a great, bonding, experience… for all of us...” He says through gritted teeth. No way was he backing down now. He was in too deep. He already put so much effort into capturing these two he might as well just keep going.

“That’s your decision.” Brian steps closer to him, tying the ends of the apron. “Take responsibility for what happens.” He says darkly, and then claps his hands together. He pulls out a folded piece of paper. “Right! First on the top of the order, Raphaella requested cookies, and I quote: ‘even though it isn’t technically cookie night and I know that it isn’t but consider that I really like cookies and also can you test out this substitute butter I made with Ashes and Nastya I think that it would really enhance the taste and I know you’ve perfected the recipe at this point but consider that there are no ends to improvement within the world of chemistry! Which is just baking-’ and, it keeps going for about another page should I finish this or…?”

Marius shook his head. “Oh, if you think that’s only a page, you’d be wrong.” He poked the folded piece of paper, and a whole scroll tumbled out from below. They both watch as it rolls, all the way back to the table. Marius coughs, and pokes it one more time. A couple more inches unravel.

“I see.”

“Oh, wow, she really did include a table to record the results. Very meticulous.”

Tim makes a couple of muffled noises before shimmying out of his gag, gasping for air. “Can you _please_ untie me, I want nothing more than to leave.”

“Only under the promise that you, A, won’t leave, and B, won’t instantly shoot Jonny, because this is a _bonding_ activity now, and I want everyone’s cooperation!”

Tim frowns.

“There will be cookies!”

Tim smiles.

And so the baking bonding experience began. 

After a good hour of yelling about what to make, Brian slammed his hand down at the center of the table, apologized for slamming the table, and then declared that they were going to make cookies, like Raphaella asked for. Marius wasn’t too fussed about what to make, really he just wanted to have something to do with his hands. And maybe spend some time with his dear friends, not that he would admit that to anyone. 

Said dear friends were making it, damn hard to actually appreciate them though.

They were halfway through measuring the flour when Jonny “accidentally” (Marius saw, but he wasn’t a snitch) steps on Tim’s shoes, prompting a brief scuffle between the two. “Wait, wait, _wait wait wait!”_ Marius cried. The bonding! It was not going well! He had to do something! Tim swiped at Jonny, who dodged a little too well, ramming straight into Brian, who had held a massive bag of flour.

The bag hurtles towards the floor and lands with a _fwomph!_ An explosion. Of flour. A heavy cloud of processed wheat product is all over the air in the kitchen for a solid couple seconds.

Brian stands there, dumbfounded, covered in a thick layer of flour. It had formed a beard on top of the one he already had. “You have been here for two hours. Only two.” He takes a deep breath. “Tim, if you could please soften the butter. Actually no, I don’t want to let you near the microwave anymore,” Marius shudders at the memory of the last time Tim was allowed near the microwave. The excuse of not having known that metal does _that_ did not fly well with most of the crew. “-can you just crack the eggs? And Jonny. Chop the walnuts. Go to town on them.”

Jonny, shakes off the flour that half of his body was covered in, and enthusiastically pulls out several knives he had on him. Brian lowers them, handing him a normal kitchen knife. Jonny pouts at this, but gets to work anyways. Tim is delighted by the prospect of making mini explosions via egg yolk. Marius smiles to himself. A bonding moment! Sure it started off rocky, but it worked! They are bonding!

Eventually they manage to achieve one whole batch of cookie dough, with a few casualties of eggs on the floor and so, so much flour everywhere. Despite knowing full well that Brian might throw a spoon at him, Marius nicks a little bit. He notices Jonny taking a couple spoonfuls as well.

He pats his flour covered hands on his trousers, if things were going to get messy then he might as well ruin them before anyone else. He notices Tim eyeing the dough with an intensity that could only be achieved by mechanical means. His pupils expanded to the edges of his irises. This only happened very occasionally, whenever octokittens were involved, or he came across a new gun he’d never seen before. Or, in this case, cookie dough.

Marius was about to lunge at him when Brian says, “Tim. Do not.” Tim’s finger was hovering dangerously over the bowl.

He looks at Brian.

Brian looks back at Tim.

Tim sticks his hand in. 

“Dammit, Tim, what did I _just_ say!” Brian’s face meets his hands. 

“Alright, captain’s decision, Tim’s banned now!” Jonny opens the door, and gives a gleeful whoop as he hoists, Tim up on his shoulder and places gently outside. Marius winces. Okay, maybe not so gently. He shuts the door and locks it from the inside.

Tim bangs on the door. “No! What did I do to deserve this!” 

Jonny looked out of the porthole smugly. “Everything.”

Marius glared at him. “You’re still on thin ice, Jonny, sit down.” Jonny did not sit down. In fact, he had readied his gun in retaliation. Marius shifted into a defensive stance, he was _not_ about to let Halfway through pulling it out of its holster, Brian sternly pointed at the “No Guns At The Table” sign, which had all sorts of bullet holes and burnt edges. The latter was because Ashes had claimed a loophole during pizza night, and half the kitchen had burned down. A sadder, pathetic looking post it note was stuck unceremoniously onto the bottom, reading, “No Lighters Allowed, **Ashes**.” Jonny sits down.

And so Tim was seemingly out of the baking equation, spending roughly ten minutes begging to be let back in. They don’t let him in. His puppy dog eyes were slightly disconcerting since they resembled something like a camera lens. He pressed his face against the glass. It was quite cute, Marius had to admit, but he wasn’t going to be swayed by that.

Brian looks over the bowl that supposedly had the first batch. Marius sees this, and turns around, whistling innocently. It was initially filled to the brim, but the actual amount had dropped considerably. He stares at it for some time, before silently measuring flour to make another batch. Marius smacks himself on the forehead, this was not going well at _all._

They went about their tasks in relative silence (which meant that Jonny and Marius were arguing over swans again), Brian solemnly adding chocolate chips to the second batch, Jonny rolling out the dough and arguing with Marius over which cookie cutters they should use. The one in question was technically a cat shaped one, but neither really knew what a _cat_ was. “That’s clearly a horse, von Raum.” Jonny sniffs at him pompously. “We’re not using it.” Marius looks at him in exaggerated shock. “I may not know my animals but I know a bitch when I see one!” Jonny turns his nose up.

Tim had yet to leave. He taps the door tentatively. “Can you let me back in please? _Please?”_

Marius experiences the next few moments in slow motion. 

Brian cracks. “I can’t deal with this.” He walks over to the entrance. “I’m opening the door.” Jonny drops the cookie cutter and makes a dash for Brian, mid argument, Marius assumes that he’s won the argument. He does a fist pump and starts cutting out whatever-animal-it-is shapes out, when he realizes in horror that Brian has unlocked the door. Jonny is too late. The door opens right as Tim sets off a modified hand grenade. Tim is also too late, not having noticed that the door was swung open with Brian, arms open, ready to let him back in, and his eyes enlarge in surprise. Marius dives underneath the table.

An explosion. This time it's real.

Brian’s feet automatically latch onto the ground and he isn’t blown away, but Jonny is in full blast radius. Marius’ ears are ringing. They were going to _bond_ , he said. This would be _fun,_ he said. Okay, he didn’t say the second part but that wasn’t the point!

Brian was now covered in a layer of flour and soot. “Okay. We can fix this.” Tim sheepishly kicks the remainder of the grenade away with his foot. “Tim, come back inside. Could you crack some more eggs?“ He smiles pleasantly at Tim, who bobs his head up and down very quickly, and sets to work. Brian’s voice was scarily calm. Marius turned away, continuing to cut out not-horse shapes. He does not see. He’s dealt with calm Brian before, and there was so much to unpack there, he wasn’t going to touch it. Brian closes the door carefully, strides back to where he was, and starts to mix the wet and dry ingredients.

Jonny sits up suddenly, very ready for murder and violence to be aimed at Tim, but before he could even open his mouth for a battle cry Marius clamps his hands over it. “I think we should be very, _very_ quiet and cooperative.” He hisses. Jonny looks at Brian, who has not turned around to see what has happened to him, and nods. “We have to work together, and not disturb Brian.” Marius wanted this bonding experience to be as successful as it could be. “Tim. I need you to not try to start a fight with Jonny. Jonny, don’t kill Tim.”

They were silent. Tim was pointedly not looking at Jonny and Jonny bored holes into Tim’s back, glowering.

Marius put his hands on his hips. That didn’t seem to have any effect in the same way Brian doing it did (although even then, you would be hard pressed to get any of the crew to listen to reason), so he pointed at the Drumbot for dramatic effect.

The two of them make reluctant grumbles of agreement. Phew, he’s glad that worked, he had run out of ideas, aside from getting everyone to sit together and talk about their feelings. That would not have ended well.

With another hour passing, they have a whole tray of not-at-all-horse shaped cookies, with chocolate chips and all sorts of other things in it. They even prepared a specific batch that had wood shavings in it, not for any consumption but in the spirit of the Toy Soldier’s strange requests for food with inorganic material in it.

Jonny had to be coaxed, and by coaxed Marius meant that he had to snap his neck once or twice, not to include random human bits that he had in his pockets. How was Marius supposed to know that there were fingers in there? But he managed to overcome his burning need to be antagonizing Tim at all times and actually made use of his decent cooking ability, whipping up a whole extra three batches to replace the one he ate half of, and then the one that all three of them ate. When you’re immortal, salmonella is a problem you can shoot away.

Tim was extra careful now, and Jonny actually restraining himself (a miracle, Marius thought) seemed to have an effect on him as well, and gladly helped out in the making of the three batches. _He_ didn’t complain about the weird cutter shapes, unlike _someone_. He even solved that whole debacle by declaring that it was actually a cat, which Jonny had vehemently disagreed with, but hey, no one died. A lot. Listen, Brian said that if there was a “bloodbath” he would have to clean it up but so far every death was quite clean! It was just that the rest of the kitchen seemed like a bit more of a mess after Tim thought it would be funny to throw a little flour Marius’ way. As if he wouldn’t instantly retaliate.

When the flour fight was over, the kitchen was absolutely covered in , and they all froze. In the euphoria of flour fights and actually getting good progress done, they had completely forgotten that Brian was still there. He hadn’t turned around for a snarky quip or to tell someone off in quite a while.

Jonny waves a hand in front of Brian’s face. He did not seem to respond. “Von Raum. We have a problem.” Brian kept stirring, mechanically (haha, Marius thinks to himself) moving the wooden spoon clockwise. Marius notes that there was a little moustache engraved near the bottom, how sweet of the Toy Soldier! 

“Brian?” Marius asks. 

No response.

He recalls a distant memory of a time Brian actually divulged information about himself. After much pestering about how much better it would make him feel. “I think he’s gone into the Vacation Brian daydream again.”

“The what.” Jonny asks, deadpan.

“You know, the Vacation Brian daydream, where he’s out on a beach planet with a Space Hawaiian shirt and a mimosa. Far away from all of us.”

Tim rolls up a little ball of cookie dough and pops it in his mouth, he really doesn’t learn does he, and says, “Sounds rather nice!”

“I’m choosing not to react to that last part.” Jonny forcefully pries the bowl from Brian’s grasp. He continues stirring, but only air this time. “I think you broke him, Tim. Stupid.” Tim scowls. “I will not apologize to you, because you’re wrong, but I will to Brian. And also you’re stupid.”

It was now early afternoon on standard ship time, and the three of them had “cleaned up” to the best of their ability. Which meant either sweeping whatever they could underneath the counter or tables and wiping away whatever stains there were, which was more like swiping it to a specific direction and giving up with they couldn’t seem to pick it up with a rag. Jonny suggested burning everything down several times, asserting that it would be much easier, and while Tim was rather enthusiastic, he would point to the “No Lighters Allowed, **Ashes**.” sign every time. Marius was very proud of the progress that they had made! He retracts his earlier thought, Tim _does_ learn, but only when feeling guilty. Yay for bonding!

Soon the oven made its characteristic _ping!_ Brian stops right in his tracks, his hand stilling for the first time in hours. 

Jonny and Tim look at Marius expectantly and he groans. Just because he has a metal arm doesn’t mean that he has to be used as a human oven mitt every time! He whines about it but opens the oven door anyways, and is greeted by the sight of cookies. Not just any normal cookie though, nicely browned, rich chocolate melting in pools and craters, and several very non-misshapen not-cats-at-all cookies. 

“Guys look! We did great! We did it!” He triumphantly waves the first tray around, and Tim instantly launches himself towards it to grab a cookie. “Tim, wait, you should probably wait for them to cool-” 

“Hunger waits for no one! Oh, ow, fuck, that’s actually really hot-” Tim plays hot potato with the fresh cookie, one of the ones not at all of a feline configuration, and drops it on the floor. Jonny dives at it, yelling, “Three second rule!” 

Brian blinks. “Oh? We’re done? Oh, that’s great. That’s more than great.” He sounds relieved, and Marius is happy to have helped in this endeavor. Jonny gets up from the ground, a cookie. Tim pulls up a chair for him, and he falls into it with a _clunk_. He reaches for a cookie, and bites into it. “Huh. This is actually very nice. Good job, you three.”

Jonny crosses his arms and looks away, embarrassed. Tim ducks his head and starts whistling. Absolute, utter nerds. Marius looks up at the ceiling. “Aurora, could you call over everyone-” The already beaten up, soot covered door is kicked open.

“-and that’s why I think turtles should have rabbit legs!” Raphaella prances in, with Ivy and Nastya in tow. “Ooh, brilliant, I’m starving! I’m just gonna take a bite out of- _what the fuck?_ ” Marius slaps the cookie out of her hands, making a loud _SNAP_. “No! Not that one!” Raphaella makes an offended noise and looks around the room to see if anyone was watching, and promptly sweeps the brutally murdered cookie underneath the table. The mess won’t hurt Brian if he doesn’t see it.

Nastya eyes the cookies warily. “Jonny, I’m only asking once. Does this have people in it?” She pokes it experimentally.

Jonny opens his mouth to respond, when Marius cuts in. “I can personally vouch for him, there is only a 0.00000…” He counts out the zeros on his hands. “-0000.1% chance that it might be a _bit_ human. Like, our skin cells tops.” Ivy narrows her eyes. “A nonzero chance though.” Marius glared. “You know what I mean.”

A chirp from overhead catches Nastya’s attention. “Aurora tells me that Ashes and the Toy Soldier are on their way. Apparently, they have been sorting through a week long shopping haul. I am not entirely sure when that happened.” A set of bleeps and bloops. Nastya listens to it, and laughs. Marius looks at her, questioningly. She grins at him. “You wouldn’t want to know.”

Brian holds out his arms and vibrates the flour and soot off. Tim gawks at him. “You could do that the whole time?” 

“No, I just found out about it. Yeah, of course I could, I was just very stressed and occupied.” Tim looks away, suddenly very self-conscious. “Oh, Tim, it’s alright. You did fine in the end, I won’t die from stress. Unless I can. That’s a scary thought. Oh dear.” The Toy Soldier cheerfully interjects his thought spiral. “When are we starting the cooking! I brought ingredients!” Brian swipes the bag from its hands and places it on top of the fridge. “If you think a fridge will stop me, then you are sorely mistaken, Drumbot!” Ashes appears from behind it. "I tried to stop it but honestly, I don't even want to know what's inside."

“TS, no, we have bigger problems. Okay, everyone today’s goal is to not fuck up pasta. I think we can do that. Raph, Ivy, Nastya, I think I can trust you not to somehow fail boiling water, yes, Raphaella, it is very science-y you can have fun with it. Ashes, no you are not allowed near the fire things but you can certainly do the knife things. Jonny, the fire things. Tim, if you could fry the garlic, yeah, those things. Marius, make sure no one dies.” Ah! A leadership role. Marius salutes at Brian.

“Hey, I’m the captain, I’m the one who’s supposed to be giving out orders!” Jonny complains, and Tim makes eye contact with him from across the room, mouthing, _first mate._

Brian rolls his eyes, pointing to his apron. “Not in this kitchen, you’re not. Let’s go everyone!” Jonny looks petulant, crossing his arms. “ _I_ want to say that.”

“Fine, Jonny, go on ahead.”

He brightens, and puts on his performance voice, projecting all over the cramped kitchen. “Let’s go! Chop chop, everyone, we have dinner to make and cookies as a reward at the end of the day, food time!”

They spend the rest of the evening cooking pleasantly together.

...

Hah, you thought, Marius has been around these people for _far_ too long to even think of that as a possibility.

They get as far as the sauce but then halfway through actually boiling the pasta, everything goes wrong. No one knew who threw the first fistful of mushrooms but it instantly devolved.

Marius is sitting in the middle of a food fight, with the kitchen half on fire (the sign, woefully ignored, apparently the new loophole was that it only stipulated that _Ashes_ couldn’t set fires) and he’s satisfied to say that the bonding experience worked! Tim and Jonny are sitting behind the upturned table with several dumplings for ammo, and Brian seems to have loosened up, teaming up with Ivy and Nastya with pots and pans for helmets. He grins, leans back in his chair in fulfilled smugness. A plate smashes against his face. 

Oh, it’s fucking _on._

**Author's Note:**

> I started a sad, sad Raphaella-centric multichapter fic I was going to post today and instead I wrote about the gogglemechs and baking. Again, as usual, a whole fic based on extended conversations with my twin, who I consulted several times. Props to twinnie for coming up with the cat cookie cutter.
> 
> Marius is very fun to write, because as far as I've characterized him, I'm just writing myself. Can't wait for when I finish the angst fic! :D
> 
> Writing those two made me sad so I wrote this in between the two, and then, finished this before I did the other ones like good going me. That's why it's hopelessly cute and fluffy, and it's about cookies! Let me have this.


End file.
